The Land of the Divided: American Civil War Collection stands as a monumental compendium of American literature, offering a panoramic view of the American Civil War through a carefully curated selection of narratives, each reflecting diverse literary styles and perspectives. Encompassing a range of genres from historical fiction to memoirs, and even journalistic accounts, this anthology presents an unmatched exploration of the era's complexities and contradictions. The collection is remarkable not only for its breadth but also for including seminal works that have shaped the American literary canon, allowing readers to witness the wars impact on both the national psyche and individual lives within different societal spheres. The chosen pieces serve as a testament to the period's rich literary fabric, woven from the threads of tragedy, valor, despair, and hope. The collaborative effort of esteemed authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and Ambrose Bierce, among others, brings a diverse array of voices into a harmonious dialogue about a pivotal moment in American history. These authors, coming from varied backgrounds and holding different stakes in the civil conflict, provide a multifaceted view that enriches the collection. Their contributions reflect the zeitgeist of their times and the enduring human conditions influenced by war, capturing the nuanced essence of a divided nation. The anthology aligns with significant literary and historical movements, embedding personal narratives within the broader context of national identity and conflict. It is a critical resource for understanding the diverse literary landscapes and cultural narratives that emerged from the Civil War era. The Land of the Divided: American Civil War Collection is an indispensable anthology for scholars, students, and enthusiasts alike, offering a comprehensive and immersive journey into the heart of American civil conflict through the lens of literature. It promises not only a profound educational experience but also a deep, empathetic insight into the tumultuous period it covers. Readers are invited to traverse this literary mosaic, engaging with the voices that collectively portray the strife, resilience, and evolution of the American spirit during one of the nation's most defining trials. This collection epitomizes the power of literature to connect the past with the present, urging a reflective exploration of the themes that continue to shape the fabric of American society.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand." When Abraham Lincoln spoke these words in 1858, a deadly storm was brewing in the United States. Many in the South no longer wanted to remain a part of the country. They wanted to form their own country, where slavery remained legal and where Northerners stayed out of Southerners' business. In 1861, the storm hit. The "house" of the United States was split in half by a terrible war that would drag on for years. Before the Civil War ended, more than half a million soldiers would die in what would be, and still remains, the conflict that has claimed the greatest number of American lives. But when the clouds of this war of brother against brother finally cleared, nearly four million African Americans had been freed from bondage--and the divided house was whole again.

A chronicle of battle and bravery in the Civil War, as Polish officers who had lost their own country remained determined to fight for their new one, and for the ideals they had always upheld, whether freedom or independence, or whether North or South . . .

Consolidating one of the most complex and multi-faceted eras in American History, this new edition of Jonathan Wells’s A House Divided unifies the broad and varied scholarship on the American Civil War. Amassing a variety of research, this accessible and readable text introduces readers to both the war and the Reconstruction period, and how Americans lived during this time of great upheaval in the country's history. Designed for a variety of subjects and teaching styles, this text not only looks at the Civil War from a historical perspective, but also analyzes its ramifications on the United States and American identities through the present day. This second edition has been updated throughout, incorporating new scholarship from recent studies on the Civil War era, and includes additional photographs and maps (now incorporated throughout the text), updated bibliographies, and a supplementary companion website.

Winner of the 2022 New-York Historical Society Book Prize in American History A Washington Post and BookPage Best Nonfiction Book of the Year From a Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, the powerful story of a fragile nation as it expands across a contested continent. In this beautifully written history of America’s formative period, a preeminent historian upends the traditional story of a young nation confidently marching to its continent-spanning destiny. The newly constituted United States actually emerged as a fragile, internally divided union of states contending still with European empires and other independent republics on the North American continent. Native peoples sought to defend their homelands from the flood of American settlers through strategic alliances with the other continental powers. The system of American slavery grew increasingly powerful and expansive, its vigorous internal trade in Black Americans separating parents and children, husbands and wives. Bitter party divisions pitted elites favoring strong government against those, like Andrew Jackson, espousing a democratic populism for white men. Violence was both routine and organized: the United States invaded Canada, Florida, Texas, and much of Mexico, and forcibly removed most of the Native peoples living east of the Mississippi. At the end of the period the United States, its conquered territory reaching the Pacific, remained internally divided, with sectional animosities over slavery growing more intense. Taylor’s elegant history of this tumultuous period offers indelible miniatures of key characters from Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Margaret Fuller. It captures the high-stakes political drama as Jackson and Adams, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster contend over slavery, the economy, Indian removal, and national expansion. A ground-level account of American industrialization conveys the everyday lives of factory workers and immigrant families. And the immersive narrative puts us on the streets of Port-au-Prince, Mexico City, Quebec, and the Cherokee capital, New Echota. Absorbing and chilling, American Republics illuminates the continuities between our own social and political divisions and the events of this formative period.

The little-known history of anti-secession Southerners: “Absolutely essential Civil War reading.” —Booklist, starred review Bitterly Divided reveals that the South was in fact fighting two civil wars—the external one that we know so much about, and an internal one about which there is scant literature and virtually no public awareness. In this fascinating look at a hidden side of the South’s history, David Williams shows the powerful and little-understood impact of the thousands of draft resisters, Southern Unionists, fugitive slaves, and other Southerners who opposed the Confederate cause. “This fast-paced book will be a revelation even to professional historians. . . . His astonishing story details the deep, often murderous divisions in Southern society. Southerners took up arms against each other, engaged in massacres, guerrilla warfare, vigilante justice and lynchings, and deserted in droves from the Confederate army . . . Some counties and regions even seceded from the secessionists . . . With this book, the history of the Civil War will never be the same again.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Most Southerners looked on the conflict with the North as ‘a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight,’ especially because owners of 20 or more slaves and all planters and public officials were exempt from military service . . . The Confederacy lost, it seems, because it was precisely the kind of house divided against itself that Lincoln famously said could not stand.” —Booklist, starred review

A profound and insightful investigation into how the American Civil War transformed modern medicine. At the start of the Civil War, the medical field in America was rudimentary, unsanitary, and woefully underprepared to address what would become the bloodiest conflict on U.S. soil. However, in this historic moment of pivotal social and political change, medicine was also fast evolving to meet the needs of the time. Unprecedented strides were made in the science of medicine, and as women and African Americans were admitted into the field for the first time. The Civil War marked a revolution in healthcare as a whole, laying the foundations for the system we know today. In Healing a Divided Nation, Carole Adrienne will track this remarkable and bloody transformation in its cultural and historical context, illustrating how the advancements made in these four years reverberated throughout the western world for years to come. Analyzing the changes in education, society, humanitarianism, and technology in addition to the scientific strides of the period lends Healing a Divided Nation a uniquely wide lens to the topic, expanding the legacy of the developments made. The echoes of Civil War medicine are in every ambulance, every vaccination, every woman who holds a paying job, and in every Black university graduate. Those echoes are in every response of the International and American Red Cross and they are in the recommended international protocol for the treatment of prisoners of war and wounded soldiers. Beginning with the state of medicine at the outset of the war, when doctors did not even know about sterilizing their tools, Adrienne illuminates the transformation in American healthcare through primary source texts that document the lives and achievements of the individuals who pioneered these changes in medicine and society. The story that ensues is one of American innovation and resilience in the face of unparalleled violence, adding a new dimension to the legacy of the Civil War.